Life's Elegy
by saunatonttu
Summary: A simple story of life and death, of two entities completely different from one another. dark-ish AU. Rated M for vagueness, dark and vague sexual themes.


**title:** Life's Elegy

**characters:** Irie Shouichi, Byakuran, mentions of Sawada Tsunayoshi.

**rating:** M for dark themes and extremely vague plot and vague sexual implications.

**summary: **A simple story of life and death, of two entities completely different from one another. dark-ish AU.

**notes:** Don't feel bad if you don't understand the plot because there really doesn't seem to be any.

Also, credit goes to _Idyllic Critic_ for giving me an idea for this. Thank you for being such an inspiration, even though you certainly love torturing me.

* * *

The story begins with a contract.

(-_except that it doesn't, not really; the story has already started when the contract is made, but this is the starting point for what proves out to be an insanely complicated and a tad suicidal relationship-_)

A contract between a mortal and Death – a fool's attempt at seeking immortality with no knowledge of what the concept entails.

* * *

The mortal wants immortality.

* * *

Death simply wants company.

* * *

**Both parties have accepted the contract unconditionally and in mutual agreement on how it is to be implemented in real life.**

* * *

The story begins-_began-_with the contract between Irie Shouichi and Death. It's a simple contract, there are no conditions other than the ones already presented, and Shouichi knows-_thinks_-that he can deal with this shadow of a person by his side.

Silence lingers between them, and the only thing that is missing is the handshake of confirmation – or doom – and it's only at this point that he hesitates. Hesitates, because he's afraid of Death, afraid that it will not keep its end of the deal.

He doesn't dare to look – he has not dared to look at _it_, the embodiment of death, and he feels cold sweat forming on the back of his neck as minutes trickle by in silence.

And then skeletal fingers – bone, hard bone – brushes against the back of Shouichi's hand, and Shouichi nearly jumps because he hasn't expected that touch, and-

Those fingers run up Shouichi's clothed arm, sending chills through the mortal-_living, beating heart_-and Shouichi holds his breath even if he wants to know _why_ and _is that deal not enough for you _and _do I need to give more because I would_-

The skeletal fingers move up to Shouichi's pallid cheek – and the _beating-living-pumping_ heart pauses for one dramatic moment, almost painfully so.

"What is your name, mortal?" the voice is quiet, and nothing like what Shouichi expects it to be – that sweet lilt is unfitting for the personification of rotten decay and crushed dreams and things that once meant something but are now forever forgotten.

Shouichi doesn't look at his side, he merely stares into the darkness of the room and pretends that he's not sweating and tells himself that everything is and will be alright because surely Death is pleased, for getting what he wants out of this deal, for getting company other than the souls it takes to the River.

"Irie Shouichi," he says, evenly, but not without fearful irritation because this is the _second_ time he has told Death this. But what can he do? Death is eternal, Death has been on loose ever since the birth of first creatures, Death is omnipotent – omnipresent, everywhere, any time.

There's laughter at his side – soft, tinkling, but undeniably _dark_ – and Shouichi's body freezes when cold, icy breath touches his ear before moving down to his neck, the sounds of teeth meeting teeth all too close for comfort.

"Shou-chan it is," the voice decides, and then the skeletal fingers are replaced by soft fingertips that trace at Shouichi's cheek mockingly gently, as if asking _are you sure you know what you got yourself into_ – and to be fair, Shouichi doesn't, but neither does he care because he's ready to deal with anything as long as the contract is accepted and implemented.

"What are you called, then?" Shouichi's voice shakes, trembles, and the fingers on his cheek resume their soft dance across the skin, like spiders rushing. _It's cold._ "Death?"

Laughter again, this time softer and more amused, and this time Shouichi can feel lips near his ear. Lips – not the teeth of a skull, but soft, tender _lips_ – that almost touch the shell of his ear, the distance mocking as coldness drapes itself over Shouichi like a blanket, though lacking in comfort.

"I hate that generic name people put on us," the voice murmurs, words blowed into Shouichi's ear. "Call me _Byakuran-san,_ Shou-chan." A hand moves down, and Shouichi is soon pressed against someone's chest, and there's a chin atop Shouichi's auburn hair, and Shouichi's forehead is pressed against a bony shoulder that seems unnaturally thin and lacking.

-**the story of Death and the Immortal-**

Death follows him everywhere.

He doesn't mind-he grows used to the cold limbs that wrap themselves over him when he's too tired to push them away-he doesn't care because it's the contract, and he is like Mr. Responsibility and deals with the consequences of what he has asked for himself.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Death has an utterly charming personality, even with the hints of assured insanity that Shouichi has expected.

He lets Death hold him when he sleeps – pretends to, anyway – and he tries not to feel the Arctic chill that goes through him every time Death shares a bed with him, in the most innocent sense.

Death holds him in its (his?) embrace, and slowly Shouichi decides that he doesn't mind it as much as he formerly would have minded.

He's immortal and Death won't kill him.

**-it starts, and-**

He can't take the scent of Death. It makes him hurl, no matter how used to it he pretends to be, and he knows Death knows this -

(it's painfully apparent)

(Death says it's cute)

-and it takes an incident where Shouichi can't even go to sleep that Death decides that _fine, perhaps the scent of rotting flesh and fluorine and chlorine is too much_.

Shouichi doesn't think that the scent of marshmallows is much better, either, but he takes it.  
As long as he doesn't have to smell the scent of lingering death and lost lives.

-**where immortality fails, the death succeeds-**

He's a medical examiner, and death, to him, is familiar. He has seen it. He sees it every day.

He opens people every day, too – his gloved hands touch internal organs – _livers, guts, __**hearts**__, and so-many-more-until-he-feels-like-he's-choking_ – and he knows death better than most people.

He knows _Death_ better than most people, too.

Death and him are good acquaintances. They live together. They're stuck together in the way that two handcuffed slaves are – no way out, but Shouichi somehow doubts Death—_Byakuran-san—_minds it.

If he minded, why is he there with Shouichi, purple eyes leering at him as he works on a young woman that has been brutally murdered, hit by a blunt object before sawing her limbs off, which only leaves her torso intact.

He's far too used to these things to feel bothered; too numb to actually _care_ what the poor girl has gone through.

However, he is _not_ used to getting added commentary during the process of opening up an abdomen with one of the several saw at his disposal, and what Death—_Byakuran-san!-_says is outright disturbing and not anything he has ever wanted to hear.

"I could easily name a better place to strike than the back of her head." Death (_Byakuran, Byakuran, Byakuran_) looks decidedly unimpressed as shadows dance across his paler than white face, which is only accentuated by the dim lights of the morgue.

Shouichi can't quite decide which is creepier – the blue-violet of Death's eyes or the lilting, careless words that sound like an attempt on idle chit-chat-

(_but there is nothing idle about death and murder_ _and splattered blood that can't be removed_)

"First of all, pummeling someone to death~? That's so incredibly _uncreative._"

Death is nitpicky about dying, who would have thought? And here you might have thought that it doesn't care as long as _death_ happens, as long as whatever is left of human being when the body is excluded gets taken away.

Death moves away from one of the autopsy tables – _like a cat, _Shouichi thinks and _no,_ he is not impressed by the mobility, not at all -

(_maybe a bit, because you'd imagine Death being an old man and not a gorgeous twenty-something_)

-and suddenly Death is behind him, and even in this freezing room, his breath is at least five degrees colder, and Shouichi shivers and his skin crawls.

"Slicing the arteries on one's neck is far more efficient," Death purrs like a kitten obsessed with blood and massacres, and his lips ghost over the nape of Shouichi's neck.

Shouichi says nothing – the dissection needs concentration on his part, and not even Death breathing down on his neck can disturb him.

But a fleeting caress over his Adam's apple can, and it does.

Shouichi drops the instrument. A quiet clanking sound echoes in the room, but Shouichi only hears the painful thuds of his own-_living, beating_-heart.

Deathly cold fingers tap at Shouichi's neck, and a hollow chuckle resounds against Shouichi's neck.

"You'd be surprised by how many sloppy throat-slices I have seen, Byakuran-san," Shouichi whispers, unafraid even as Byakuran's song fingers and hand turn into bones and joints that crack as they move. He doesn't turn his eyes away from the girl on the table – he stares at the dark purple, dark blue skin and the eyes that stare up hollowly, unseeing, and he wonders why they aren't closed.

Byakuran laughs. At Shouichi's response. At the murderer of the nameless girl (_Jane Doe_, one of the many that litter the morgue like rats, like insects), at the girl herself.

"Shou-chan has seen it all, ne?" Byakuran—_Death—_murmurs, so gentle and loving and _caring_ in his horrid words and actions that no one can hear nor feel like Shouichi can, like he _does._ A hand strokes at the Adam's apple some more, finger bones fleeting over the skin – and it's scary, it's terrifying how close Death is upon him, but he knows Death won't claim him.

That thought makes his horribly loud heartbeats quiet, and his heart slows down to an acceptable trot.

"It's horrible, _horrible,_ this world is," Byakuran sings into his ear with saccharine voice, high and honey-coated, and soft lips (but the bone fingers remain, he feels them) move. "And so _ignorant_ for the most efficient methods, too," Byakuran, the personification of everything Shouichi once feared, whispers lowly.

"Boring, boring, _boring,_ mortals are so _boring._"

Shouichi sighs, Adam's apple pushing against the bones of Byakuran's (deathly) fingers. "Byakuran-san," he says, evenly, and finally he moves his hand to Byakuran's that covers Shouichi's throat. Human bone feels cold against his hand. Cold, and lifeless. "I have to work."

He can sense Byakuran's toothy smile (he knows there's no face, he can hear the cracks of bones, he can hear the poppoing of bones snapping) and he shivers.

Death is a scary business.

-**death and mortality go hand-in-hand-**

To be favoured by Death is to be disfavoured by Life.

Shouichi, not for the first time, wonders in what kind of caste he belongs now. Life does not favour him, not much, because he has broken his leg, he still gets ulcers on a frequent basis, and he still isn't as safe from armed robberies as he'd like.

And he had Death clinging to him – literally – and he sometimes he doesn't know what to make of those fleeting smiles and gleaming eyes that bore into his very soul (if he believed in such a thing; he's a man of science!) but, in the end, that doesn't even matter.

Death and mortality, he thinks, go well together – because Death can claim them, he has power over them, and Death keeps mortals humble – or at least it has the power to teach humility to people.

What does that make him?

Shouichi doesn't know. He has a Life worth living for now – and Death cannot claim him, not like it (_him, _Shouichi reminds himself) claims normal people.

Not like it claims Sawada Tsunayoshi.

(_Him._)

Shouichi silently watches when Sawada Tsunayoshi is run over by a truck, witnesses how Tsunayoshi's body bends and breaks and _twists_, and even from a distance, he can tell that it is not enough to kill him immediately.

Byakuran-_DeathDeathDeath_-lazily looks over, his arm around Shouichi's waist.

(_Death is an affectionate being, even with its impossibly cold limbs and freezing touches.)_

"Tsunayoshi-kun." And Death smiles—it's an impossibly grotesque smile that still makes Shouichi shiver in his boots-before floating over to the scene of the accident. Shouichi follows with his eyes, noting how Byakuran-Death bends down, placing a hand over what he thinks might be Tsunayoshi's heart – or what's left of Tsunayoshi's smashed chest.

It's fascinating in the most morbid of ways, and he can't tear his green eyes away from the scene. This is what he had left behind him – the possibility of dying, the possibility of ever going into a vegetable state.

Byakuran-Death looks up from Tsunayoshi's body – by now, there are people buzzing about frantically, shouts of distress echoing in the air – and grins as he waves a jar, and Shouichi narrows his eyes and thinks he might discern something white and translucent floating inside the glass jar.

The scary thing is that he feels nothing.

Well, that is not entirely true, he thinks as Byakuran-_affectionate, creepy, affectionate, cold Death_-floats back to his side. His glasses-framed eyes look at Byakuran's long legs, and he wonders why Byakuran wears jeans when Death is supposed to wear a long, black cape, along with a long scythe.

"Welcome back," Shouichi whispers when Byakuran takes his hand – cold against warmth – and there's a small smile on his face, and a bigger one on Byakuran's.

[_He greets Death with a smile.]_

-**dance with death-**

Byakuran's arm is around his waist, secure as an anchor, and the other hand holds Shouichi's. It's midnight, pale moon filtering into the vast room Shouichi isn't entirely sure he knows

(but he doesn't care, it doesn't really matter)

(death is there, Byakuran-san is there)

(it's his place to be)

and Byakuran swirls him around to a music that doesn't exist in this time or place, but which Shouichi can hear because he has the ears of a musician even if his skills have never been good enough, like the rest of him.

He knows this dance, so he doesn't look down at his feet as he dances (stumbles, steps on Byakuran's toes, falls) with Death, and his serious green eyes—_why so serious, Shou-chan, why so __**serious—**_look at Byakuran's face that is paler than the white moonlight that is but a reflection of the sun's light.

It's a beautiful face. It's an immortal face.

But it's not a human's face.

Byakuran brings them to a stop

(Mozart is over, now it's time for some Bach)

and then...

"Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?"

Shouichi's lips quirk into a wry, fearless smile. "I'm here with you, aren't I?"

_Death smiles the brightest._ "I like that answer, Shou-chan."

And then Death claims him.

-**death is an ode to life**-

Death's touch may be cold as ice, but Shouichi finds the ice comforting. The cold is soothing. The cold heals old wounds. The cold rejuvenates himself when he thinks he can no longer go on living this way.

Byakuran touches him now more than before – it's like he can't get enough of Shouichi's thin, untrained body that lacks muscle

(it's all up _there_)

-and Shouichi lets him, even when his cheeks flush bright red because he has never been touched that way, so intimately, so lovingly and with adoration that has been twisted by death's twisted hold.

Byakuran laughs, and it is that sound that makes Shouichi return from the depths of his dull despair of life.

Death's kisses burn him more than sun ever does, and they leave burns deeper than days spent in sunny beaches with too many people and too much noise, but it's okay because Shouichi is used to Byakuran and he likes how Byakuran makes him feel alive.

(_Death is good. Death is attractive. Beloved Death.)_

Death envelopes him, it fills him up until he no longer feels like he's missing a piece. Something important that he lost – but it no longer matters – if he doesn't remember it, it's not important.

Death is an ode to Life.

Life is a prequel to Death.

Shouichi doesn't know if he's cheating fate because he has gotten his sequel and his heart still beats – _thud thud thud –_ and he still lives, he still goes out with Spanner and his family, and he still _tries_ even when he's tired, even when he has cut up too many bodies whose names he cannot remember for more than a day or two before they disappear.

He still lives, and he's not dying.

He's not.

He doesn't want to die.

(_but when Death holds him like this, it is Death that he thinks, not Life)_

_(not himself)_

_(purple looks good against white, that's what he thinks as he swats a wandering hand away)_

**-death promises sweet nothingness-**

Death whispers many things to him. Most of them are nonsensical, and Shouichi pushes them away without a second thought because Death is a kidder, a true Joker, and Shouichi has never been one to joke around.

_(like sunshine and marshmallows and promises of fairytale ends)_

But there are times when Shouichi listens to him, listens to sweet nothings because the world is cruel, way crueler than he had thought before, and it's only Byakuran that can pull him back fully from the void he sinks time after time.

"I love Shou-chan."

He listens.

"I love Shou-chan so much."

Death smiles at him.

Shouichi's heart does that strange flipping movement that only happens when he's feeling anxious, and he-

-knows exactly what this means.

There's that bony finger again (no skin, no muscle, just _bones_) and it traces at Shouichi's chin, and Shouichi leans towards the touch as his eyes remain on Byakuran's human-like face, waiting.

He doesn't have to wait long.

White hair thins, turns less fluffy and less clean, and skin withers away until it is no more. Shouichi watches this transition with morbid, dreadful, _scientific_ interest. He watches as violet orbs sink into the sockets until the fade away... and then... there is only the skull left. Skull and skeleton. Clothes hang loosely on the bones, and Shouichi can't stop staring.

Byakuran's jaw bone moves. Something akin to a smile.

Yellow, ancient bones move towards Shouichi and arm bones wrap around the redhead, the immortal (the Life), and the redhead returns the embrace.

To be or not to be.

Shouichi kisses the edge of Byakuran's socket before pulling back. There's no turning back – he has seen everything now – and so he leans in again, pink tongue flicking out and he drags it over the sharp edge of the socket, the dirt of bone tasting like dust and something Shouichi can't distinguish.

Maybe it's death.

If a skeleton could smile, Byakuran is definitely grinning as he leans forward to press his teeth against Shouichi's lips.

The immortal closes his never-sleeping eyes.

-**life's but a dream**-

Suddenly Byakuran's touches are burning hot on his skin, and Shouichi can't help but want more. The coldness is gone, the Arctic winds are gone, and now there's warmth comparable to a volcano, and he wants it. He doesn't know how to say it.

But he forgets that Byakuran knows him the best.

(_he never sees Spanner anymore_)

And this is why Byakuran's ghostly white fingers are now tracing Shouichi's bare thighs, mapping out the area they have never traveled before, and Byakuran wears a reverent look.

"Shou-chan." His voice is low and husky; Shouichi almost moans at the sound of it as it speaks into his ear. "Shou-chan~," Byakuran repeats daintily, hand cupping Shouichi's manhood, and giddy feeling makes its way to Shouichi's stomach as he leans against Byakuran's bony chest.

Byakuran's hand against him feels hot, it burns him, and Shouichi is already panting. "Byakuran-san," he moans, back of his head on Byakuran's shoulder. He feels so hot—_please please please—_-and he doesn't know how to express his needs after so many years

(or is it already-?)

of restriction and self-control and _sinking sinking sinking _depression.

Byakuran's hand is sure, it knows what to do. It unzips Shouichi's jeans, unbuttons the lone button, and slides under the waistband of the lone clothing standing in its way to the prize. Shouichi's breath hitches—_oh, oh, oh, Byakuran-san, _**_please—_**and it gets stuck somewhere in his windpipe when Byakuran's fingers touch him lightly. Too lightly.

"I have been waiting for Shou-chan to fulfill his promise," Byakuran hums, glee filtering into his voice as his thumb gingerly rubs over the heated head. Shouichi believes this; distantly, he remembers Byakuran's definition of company, and he is surprised Byakuran hasn't asked him to fulfill his part sooner. "I'm glad Shou-chan finally came around." Byakuran sounds almost gentle. Almost loving.

It is close enough to the real thing – and who knows, maybe it is the real thing.

Shouichi believes it is. He believes it from the bottom of his heart when Byakuran touches him in a way that no other has been able to in _years_ (decades?) and Shouichi, for the first time ever, feels like he's soaring.

Towards the reflection of the sun.

-**in beauty, there is ugliness**-

Byakuran strokes his cheeks, bony fingers hard against Shouichi's soft skin. There's a sigh; there's a glance; there's a strange, electric feeling between them that hasn't been there before.

(_maybe it has, Shouichi never notices these things before he's already in too d_eep)

Maybe it's...

"You're warm," Shouichi whispers hoarsely when Byakuran's thum caresses at the old scar near his lips. "Your fingers are warm."

Byakuran looks distinctly startled before purple eyes narrow back into their usual slits. The hand remains on Shouichi's cheek, the bones now covered with muscle and skin.

"Is that so?" Byakuran sounds cheerful, but there's something in that tone that makes Shouichi question whether this impression is correct.

(Death is never simple.)

Shouichi nods quietly, mutedly, as he leans closer and abandons the game of chess they had going on, his elbow knockng a king down. White king.

Byakuran's fingers now move into the red mop of hair. It's still the same – Shouichi thinks – this is still the same. This feeling of peace with Byakuran.

(With Death.)

"You're not supposed to be this attracted to Death, Shou-chan," Byakuran eventually murmurs, lips curved into that knowing smile of his, and this time Shouichi can't tell what Byakuran's eyes are showing. He can't read Byakuran, and it unnerves him.

"I know," Shouichi manages to say weakly. "I know."

A silence falls, Byakuran's fingers still deep within the wavy sea of red.

And an indiscernible smile tugs at Byakuran's lips.

[_Without Life, there is no Death._]

**-wanna live forever?-**

He's eighty-five in the body of a twenty-year-old, and he feels impossibly old even though his joints work well and his mind is as sharp as it has ever been.

The very reason he sought out Death and this contract now evades him-he thinks somebody died, some people maybe-but when he has Byakuran by his side, does the reason really matter? There are things in this vast world that would remain mysteries no matter how long scientists would work on unraveling them, and perhaps it is better that way.

But as much as he thinks like that, the innate curiosity within him hasn't been sated.

Maybe it never would.

-**immortality and its failings-**

He's two-hundred and fifteen when he first pops out the question that has been on his mind the last one hundred and fifty years at the very least.

"You're not human."

Well, not a question, but it has been on his mind.

Byakuran smiles—_a creepy, creepy smile_-at the statement as he turns his head from his notebook of death to look at Shouichi.

(He calls it the notebook of death, but in reality, it has nothing to do with soul-reaping.)

"Really?"

Shouichi struggles to find his words when Byakuran's burning eyes-_how had he ever thought them of cold when they burn with the fire of thousand suns_-settle on him and his sickeningly thin build.

"Yeah." In the end, he doesn't manage more than just one weary word, and he crosses his arms defensively as Byakuran tilts his head, white hair swaying. He has seen this man take souls – Sawada Tsunayoshi is just one of many people that he once upon knew that are dead now – and he has seen Byakuran set them into the River (Tuonela, he believes) where Swan swims and never rests.

"Why do you maintain that form when you're-"

Byakuran shakes his head at Shouichi's questions that come too late, too _late_, to change anything between them, and a sardonic smile fleets across his lips before it disappears as quickly as it came to.

"Why not?" Byakuran asks in return, half-lidded gaze set on Shouichi, whose face has gone paler than papyrus paper. If there is amusement to be sought from all this, it is in Shouichi's reactions, even though they are muted and almost completely gone, just like Shouichi himself.

Byakuran's arms drape themselves all over Shouichi's abdomen and tug Shouichi down until Shouichi's thighs are on both sides of Byakuran's legs. No noise of protest follows. Not the same ones as before, anyway, and Byakuran thinks—_it's a pity, Shou-chan, it really, truly is_-but he doesn't say anything about it.

"When I touch you like this, Shou-chan," Byakuran says languidly, voice smooth and low and lilting, as he sweeps the overgrown bangs from Shouichi's forehead, away from Shouichi's beautiful—tragically so-eyes. "Does it not feel like a human's touch?" His hand dips lower, fingertips brushing Shouichi's sickeningly pallid cheeks. Caressing. Loving. Worshipping.

"When I kiss you, does it not feel like a real kiss?"

Lips press against lips in a tender kiss. (Tenderness that sets him ablaze.)

"My heart beats." Byakuran brings Shouichi's hand over his muscular chest (it's not thin and lacking anymore, but it's firm and feels good under his fingers, under his palm) and holds Shouichi's hand over his heart, and even through the fabric of Byakuran's shirt, he can feel the beat of Byakuran's heart.

It thumps against his palm, calm and steady-and then, suddenly, it accelerates, and Shouichi trails his thumb on the shirt, fascinated by that reaction.

"I have thoughts," Byakuran leans over the chessboard, and bumps their foreheads together. Warm against warm-cold against cold. "I think about Shou-chan," he breathes against Shouichi's face, and Shouichi's cheeks feel impossibly warm now. "I think about how good Shou-chan feels against me." Byakuran smiles faintly as he kisses Shouichi again, teeth grazing at Shouichi's lower lip, and Shouichi breathes in the scent of marshmallows and distant decay.

"I think about dirty things I want to do," Byakuran pulls away, and his expression is full of suggestions that make Shouichi shiver with want and weak irritation because this is supposed to be a serious conversation and Byakuran is somehow making this sexual. "To Shou-chan. To the world." A giddy breath follows those words, and Byakuran-Death-skips over to Shouichi before the human-immortal-realizes.

His silky fingers brush over Shouichi's cheekbones before they move down to Shouichi's wrinkled button-up shirt. Shouichi doesn't stop him.

(Does he ever stop him anymore?)

"These kinds of thoughts," Byakuran murmurs when his nails travel on the skin he exposes, ignoring Shouichi's hisses and flinches, "aren't they so terrifyingly _human_?"

The want to own is palpable in Byakuran's eyes as he gazes at Shouichi. The greed. The sick adoration which only Death is capable of. The want, the compelling need to claim Shouichi burns behind violet hues, and Shouichi swallows even if this is not the first time he has realized this.

He wonders, briefly, what his own eyes reflect.

"I'm as human as Shou-chan wants me to be." Byakuran grins, but is not a happy smile; it is a smile of a person that knows no other facial expression.

_I'm only as human as Shou-chan himself is. _

**-Life withers, for it is not meant to last forever-**

Byakuran smiles ruefully as he strokes at Shou-chan's messy hair that Shou-chan has never been quite able to tame no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much he combs it, no matter how much gel he uses.

Shou-chan trembles under his touch.

He has a fever, you see – Shou-chan is terribly, terribly sick – or maybe it is Byakuran's touch that burns him. Byakuran doesn't like that thought – or maybe he does: that tinge of red on Shou-chan's cheeks looks so delicious, and it makes Byakuran's insides tingle with want and his stomach that never feels hunger is tight.

_I'm as human as Shou-chan wants me to be._

Byakuran feels Shou-chan breathing out his name—_oh, Byakuran-san_-and even if he is the personification of cold things and decay and thus unaffected-

(_but he isn't)_

_(for Death loves Life more than anything else)_

-he cannot suppress the strange sensation that rattles his ancient bones. He doesn't want to think about it, but he cannot stop himself from wondering as he cups Shou-chan's (_Life, that precious Life_) flushed cheek. Shou-chan leans towards the touch as if he's hungering for more, and cheeks turn brighter and breathing more laboured.

Shou-chan is sick, and Byakuran doesn't know what he should do.

Shou-chan is moaning, too, and those noises make it hard to resist – the fact that he _tries_ to stop himself from ravishing this poor, unfortunate soul is impossible in itself

(_because death knows no bounds nor sympathy_)

and yet, this one _human_ makes him reconsider. This one human that his withered heart (he once had it, he knows, they _all_ had had a heart in the beginning) has taken a liking to.

His hand goes down, fingers leave invisible trails on the skin they have mapped a thousand times and more, and Byakuran shivers despite himself. He wants everything equally; he is not supposed to have a want greater than others. His greed is not supposed to chain itself on one person like this. It's not supposed to reach this height.

"Shou-chan..." Byakuran doesn't recognize his own, trembling voice as he strokes Shou-chan's sides as he settles himself over the trembling-_spasming, convulsing-_redhead.

Shou-chan's skin is like ice and boiling water at the same time under his touches – one touch melting, another one heating Shou-chan up, and yet another making blood boil underneath the nearly translucent skin.

_I love you._ The words he has uttered so many times now die in his throat as his hands touch Shou-chan all over, gingerly and fearing that the human-_not immortal, never immortal, because immortality is a lie_-would crumble beneath him.

_I love you, Shou-chan._

.

.

.

.

.

.

[Life and Death]

[hand-in-hand]

[they go, go, _go_]

**[a n d **

** i t **

**crumbles]**

[Life always dims before Death's eyes]

[be it soul or body]

[_nothing escapes Death, there's no running away]_

[immortality of the body may be]

[immortality of the soul is not]

[it all _withers_

in the bitter

** E N D.]**


End file.
